Monday, August 22, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
In fairness, it should be noted that it is of course very
difficult to treat a long-running conflict that has been attracting so much
attention and media coverage for decades in just a few pages. But it is
noteworthy that the advertisement
for the book emphasizes:
“Alone among books for the regional
geography course, Pulsipher and Pulsipher’s World Regional Geography humanizes
geographical issues, showing how larger geographical forces affect the lives of
individuals and communities around the globe.”
In the case of the section on Israel and Palestine, the
authors obviously decided to “humanize” the Palestinians, who are depicted
right at the outset as the victims of Israel:
“Israel’s excellent technical and educational
infrastructure, its diverse and prospering economy, and the large aid
contributions (public and private) it receives from the United States and
elsewhere, have made it one of the region’s wealthiest, most technologically
advanced and militarily powerful countries.
The Palestinian people, by
contrast, are severely impoverished and undereducated after years of conflict,
inadequate government and meager living […] often in refugee camps. Through a
series of events over the past 60 years, Palestinians have lost most of the
lands on which they used to live.”
So we have Israel, which receives “large aid contributions …
from the United States and elsewhere”, and the Palestinians, who – due to “a
series of events over the past 60 years” – are reduced to eking out a “meager
living … often in refugee camps.”
Given that Israel and Palestine are presented as one of the
“worrisome geopolitical situations” in the Middle East, there is plainly no
reason whatsoever not to mention that the Palestinians have the political
support of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC);
notably, the latter boasts of being “the second largest inter-governmental
organization after the United Nations.” You just have to read through the first
paragraph of the OIC’s “History”
on its own website to find out that it was established “as a result of criminal
arson of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.” And you just have to read an
article from yesterday
to find out that up to this very day, Palestinians “recycle” the lie that a “radical
Jew” set fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969. And it isn’t hard to find out that
this lie is being widely promoted
all over the Muslim world.
Which brings us to claims like: “the conflict between Jews
and Palestinian Arabs” has always been – and continues to be – “less about
religion than control of land, settlements and access to water;” or like: the “second intifada … was primarily fueled
by the expansion of Israeli settlements.” These claims are presented as facts,
but one could literally fill a book (if not several volumes) with material
documenting that in the Arab and Muslim world, the conflict with Israel has
always been seen primarily as a religious conflict. It would actually be very
important for a textbook that tries to explain “worrisome geopolitical
situations” in the Middle East to acknowledge religion as a factor that has
fueled the Arab/Muslim-Israeli conflict. That’s why, soon after taking power in
Iran, Khomeini declared “Quds
Day,” which is meant “to proclaim the international solidarity of Muslims
in support of the legitimate rights of the Muslim people of Palestine.” And
incidentally, that’s why the “second intifada,” which was supposedly “primarily
fueled by the expansion of Israeli settlements,” is also known as the “Al-Aqsa Intifada.” And
that’s also why Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared
just last fall that Jews “have no right to desecrate the [Al-Aqsa] mosque with their
dirty feet” – by which he meant to say that Jews should not be allowed to visit
the Temple Mount.
Overlooking the political backing Palestinians have from the
Arab League and the OIC also means overlooking the vast disadvantage Israel has
in the UN, where, as Ben Cohen has explained
so well, “a whole network of anti-Israel institutions and funding streams”
created in the wake of the infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism has
remained in place after the resolution was repealed in 1991; this institutional
network continues to fuel anti-Israel initiatives and policies around the
world. Why emphasize “large aid contributions” Israel “receives from the United
States and elsewhere” while completely ignoring the considerable aid and
leverage Palestinians enjoy due to the influence of the Arab League and the
OIC?
And some related questions, particularly since the material
refers to a video [154] with the title “60 Years After Israel’s Founding,
Palestinians Are Still Refugees”: Why emphasize the Palestinian refugees
created by the Arab and Muslim wars in response to Israel’s establishment while
ignoring that the Arab states also proceeded to drive out the ancient Jewish
communities all over the Middle East? Are there any explanations that there are
Palestinian “refugee” camps in Palestinian-ruled Gaza and areas of the West
Bank because Palestinian “refugees” are unique in the world since their
“refugee” status is inheritable, and that they have a special UN organization
that takes care of them and makes sure that they receive
“the highest per capita [humanitarian] assistance in the world”?
And some more questions, given the repeated suggestions that
Israel’s founding was a “nakba”, i.e. catastrophe for the Palestinians: what
about the fact that (as I’ve explained previously)
in late 1948, a group of Palestinian
leaders officially asked for the incorporation of the West Bank into the
Jordanian kingdom, and that Jordan annexed the area in April 1950? The annexation also meant that the
people living in the West Bank — as the area was then named by Jordan
— became Jordanian citizens. Anis F. Kassim, an international law
expert and practicing lawyer in Jordan, explained in an interview published in February 2011 by the Electronic
Intifada: “on 20 December 1949, the Jordanian council of ministries amended
the 1928 citizenship law such that all Palestinians who took refuge in Jordan
or who remained in the western areas controlled by Jordan at the time of the
law’s entry into force, became full Jordanian citizens for all legal purposes.
The law did not discriminate between Palestinian refugees displaced from the
areas that Israel occupied in 1948 and those of the area that the Jordanian
authorities renamed the West Bank in 1950.”
It was only in
July 1988 that Jordan ceded its claims to the West Bank in favor of the PLO –
using the opportunity to deprive West Bank residents of their Jordanian
citizenship. As Kassim put it: “more than 1.5 million Palestinians went to bed
on 31 July 1988 as Jordanian citizens, and woke up on 1 August 1988 as
stateless persons.” (For the effects of Jordanian rule vs. Israeli rule of the
area, see this excellent article from 2002 by Ephraim Karsh).
Given that from
1948 until 1967, West Bank Palestinians were apparently quite content to live
in Jordan as Jordanian citizens, where exactly is “Palestine”? Specifically,
what “Palestine” do Pulsipher & Pulsipher have in mind when they define
“Zionists” as “those who have worked, and continue to work, to create a Jewish
homeland in Palestine”? In the context of their overall presentation, this
definition quite obviously suggests that there was a “Palestine” rightfully
belonging to Palestinians that was – and continues to be – usurped by
“Zionists.” It is also noteworthy in this context that Pulsipher &
Pulsipher refer elsewhere to “the space
in the eastern Mediterranean that Jews had shared in ancient times with
Palestinians and other Arab groups.” I guess it depends on what you call
“ancient times,” but for Jews, “ancient times” were most definitely long before
there were any “Arab groups”, let alone any “Palestinians” in this particular “space
in the eastern Mediterranean.” And incidentally, back then, this “space in the
eastern Mediterranean” wasn’t called Palestine, even though Pulsipher &
Pulsipher emphasize at one point that “the word Palestine” has “roots
far back in history.” All in all, I cannot help but see this as a fairly
transparent and completely unscholarly attempt to suggest some ancient
Palestinian history while downplaying the real ancient Jewish history of the
area.
Last but perhaps
not least, a book on geography should arguably also provide a correct image of
the actual extent of Israel’s settlements. However, Pulsipher & Pulsipher
are content to parrot popular claims about the ever-growing settlements, even though facts are not hard to come
by: as veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat acknowledged grudgingly in an
interview five years ago, “despite Israel’s continual policy
of ‘occupation and settlement building,’ an aerial photograph provided by
European sources shows that settlements have been built on approximately 1.1%
of the West Bank.” Similarly, published estimates by settlement watchdog groups
like Peace Now and B’tselem indicate that the settlements are taking up between
1.4-1.7 percent of the West Bank. Not all that much to show for more than four
decades of relentless land grabbing and incessant settlement expansion.
Incidentally, in
the same interview, Erekat also acknowledged “that former Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert had offered a final peace settlement that would include
territorial concession equivalent to the entire West Bank, the return of
thousands of Palestinian refugees […], and the division of Jerusalem.” Yet,
Palestinian President Abbas told the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl in
an interview about Olmert’s offer: “The gaps were wide.” Once
again: so much for the idea that the conflict is primarily about “control of
land, settlements and access to water” – particularly given that access to
water is becoming less relevant in view of Israel’s advances in desalination programs.
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